As a father to two so-far-healthy young boys, one soon to be a teenager I feel devastated at the thought of either of them having to endure the level of emotional chaos that Katie went through the moments leading up to her suicide attempt. My stomach goes into a knot at the thought. I mean gosh, it was a cheating boyfriend. I don't know what to do to protect them from such a path.
What happened to Katie is super sad, but hundreds of thousands of people get dumped and cheated on every year without shooting themselves. I totally understand your feelings, because I also worry for my children.
But I also try to do a few things:
1. Try to help my kids keep things in perspective. Don't hide the risk of pain and failure from them. Instead, warn them that such things will happen, and try to teach resilience.
2. Watch out for signs of depression in my kids. If I ever see them, I'll treat it seriously and get them help as soon as possible.
3. That said, I also try to keep things in perspective myself. There are so many big risks. The best I can do is care for my little ones as best I can.
It's hard to prepare someone for emotional devastation from a life event. I had loving and supporting parents, and when I found out my exwife was cheating I went through some kind of scary. My kids no doubt will experience emotional torture at some point, I just hope it comes at a time that a) I'm there to realize it and be preemptive, or 2) they are adults that have some level of emotional balance (that I hopefully had a part in building :) to sustain and live through it.
My greatest fear is that I will emotionally injure my kids despite my unconditional love for them. I make mistakes afterall, sometimes not even realizing it.
Regarding 1, it's one of the things I focus on a lot. I try not to "teach" resilience I think. I let them fail, and I'm emotional support when they fail. I let them see me fail, and I hope the combination will slowly instill resilience in them.
Perhaps if there are no instruments at hand that allow the young to act on such a disastrous suicidal impulse, at least some of these incidents could be prevented.
If you want to go that route, then you'll need to also remove the following instruments:
* Ropes or any kind of cords that can be used for hanging
* Blades of any kind (kitchen knives, scissors, box cutters, utility knives, etc.)
* Anything that can be sharpened into a point that can puncture flesh
* Any kind of chemical substance that can be deadly in sufficient quantities.
* Any bodies of water where one can drown
* Any accessible point that is high enough for one to jump off of.
The list goes on. Eventually, the environment that is left would basically be a padded room in a psychiatric hospital in a straightjacket.
To most people a gun is pretty much a button you can press and instantly end your life, and in the hands of a knowledgeable user that's about right. I think that kind of ease makes a gun very different from other methods you list, most of which require some combination of willpower, preparation, and endurance of pain and discomfort.
Your belief is common but misguided and incorrect. Many suicides are impulsive and if an easy method isn’t available the moment passes and no attempt is made.
From the story, clearly it isn't. I've a friend who killed himself with a pistol. From the blood spatter around his house it was determined that he shot himself, survived and woke up, put a towel on his head, then shot himself again.
That's a fallacy. If you have both of you sneakers untied, I bet you don't refuse to tie the first one (whatever it is) because the second would still be untied.
There are so many ways to commit suicide it's hardly worth listing them here. If her family kept any pills in the bathroom it's likely she could have killed herself without leaving the room.
It isn't about guns per se, it's about all lethal items. The how of suicide is just as important as the why. Having anything in your home that is a highly efficient means of killing yourself greatly increases the risk that you will in fact kill yourself. Most suicidal intent is temporary and most suicidal behaviour is impulsive, so restricting access to highly effective means of suicide is a vital tool in preventing suicide.
In 1998, the UK restricted sales of paracetamol (acetaminophen) to packs of no more than 32 tablets. The result was a lasting reduction in suicides by paracetamol poisoning, with no commensurate increase in suicide attempts by other means. Several studies have found that interventions like installing suicide prevention barriers on bridges can reduce the suicide rate rather than merely changing the choice of means.
If you take an overdose of tablets or slit your wrists, you'll probably survive with suitable medical care. You probably have the opportunity to change your mind, call an ambulance and save your own life. Very few people survive a gunshot wound to the head; all of them sustain life-altering injuries.
You have the right to own a gun, but that comes with responsibilities. You need to recognise that your gun poses a serious risk to you and your family, especially if it isn't consistently stored in a suitable gun safe or someone in the house is at risk of suicide.
If you're worried about the mental health of a family member, controlling their access to convenient and highly lethal means of suicide could well prevent an impulsive decision from becoming a tragedy. Clear out your liquor cabinet, throw out any surplus medication and get your gun out of the house.
Rather than offer your thoughts on what may have happened, you might be interested in reading about actual research into suicide. The gist is that many suicides are impulsive when an easy method is available– most often a gun.
Maybe. A close friend of mine used pills instead of a pistol. Thankfully they didn’t succeed in their endeavour but the fact is people who are intent on doing the deed will find a method.
The rate of success with pills is lower, and it allows time for regret and the patient to seek help, whereas with a gun after the trigger is pulled it's over. The reasons that American men commit suicide twice as often as women do even though only half as many men attempt suicide is because they are more likely to use a gun.
If you're arguing for proper storage of guns, I completely agree with you. If you're arguing that we should reduce gun ownership to save lives, you're ignoring how many lives are saved by private ownership of guns. Unfortunately, no one keeps track of this statistic, but the CDC estimates between 500,000 and 3,000,000 lives are saved in any given year [0]. This study only provides an estimate, but still, compare that to 13,000 firearm related murders [1] and 22,000 suicides [2, Table 6 on page 33]. I think we need more data but from what I've seen so far it seems to me private gun ownership is a net benefit.
> the CDC estimates between 500,000 and 3,000,000 lives are saved in any given year [0]
From that link:
> Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010).
Firearms being used in self defense =/= lives saved by firearms.
Indeed, it turns out it's complicated. That's why I said we need more data. I'm not ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.
Edit: posted in a different comment but including here as well.
> A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gun-wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.
Moreover, "firearms used in self defense" practically mean more dead people even if the defense was "successful". The mindset of dehumanizing perpetrators is disgusting, they are still people and we should strive to minimize their injuries, too, if possible (there are plenty of nonlethal means like tazers and pepperspray).
> Moreover, "firearms used in self defense" practically mean more dead people even if the defense was "successful".
You appear to be assuming that using a firearm in self-defense means killing in self-defense. If that is your position (I apologize if I'm misinterpreting you), I am not convinced you are correct. Many uses of firearms in self-defense are brandishing only; and even if a firearm is discharged in self-defense, it is not a given that it kills the original aggressor.
Not sure I agree with this either. I expect the most likely circumstance would be that the defender shows the weapon and the aggressor runs away. It's possible that it results in more gun deaths or injuries when you count both attackers and defenders, but not certain. IMO ctric isn't wrong that, as with anything, you need to study both harms and benefits and make educated decisions; I just had to point out that his initial interpretation of the study results was misleading.
I personally don't own a gun (I'm also in Canada where things are a bit different) but I have to admit that if someone broke into my house I would prefer to have one than not. That doesn't mean that unrestricted gun ownership is a net good though, of course.
Fortunately it appears we can all agree that it is critical gun owners store and secure their guns properly. In my opinion that would be a good place for new laws to focus: for example you could be required to demonstrate that you have a secure storage location and proper training before you could be licensed to own a firearm.
> but I have to admit that if someone broke into my house I would prefer to have one than not.
Someone actually has broken into my home, when I was there, and I am profoundly grateful that I, and probably the burglar, didn't have a gun available.
It didn't even cross my mind to arm myself with a weapon. I offered him a cup of tea. I told him I had nothing of value in the flat, and that it'd be safer for him to come down from the loft and leave by the front door than to climb down the scaffolding of the building next door (which is how he got in). He declined the tea, and decided to leave via the scaffolding. I called the police, and they found him in the garden of the house next door. He pulled a beer bottle on them, they subdued and arrested him.
Guns and weapons would have made this mildly stressful situation hugely worse.
I'm glad that situation worked out well. Could you not have done exactly the same even if you'd had a gun though? And that way had he not responded to your excellent de-escalation technique, and had instead attacked you with a bottle, the deterrent of the weapon might have saved you from injury.
I feel the need to again emphasize that in general I am in support of gun control and that I don't personally own guns; I can see how a person might want to though.
No he couldn't. First, the temptation to escalate is there and real. Second, if there is a chance that the homeowner will be armed, the burglar might just as well arm themselves, too. It's a cycle of fear and violence which becomes so ingrained in population's psyche that they don't even consider the world with lesser stakes.
I don't get it? Just because you own a firearm or have one on your person does not mean you must use it. Also, just because you do not feel comfortable deciding when it's appropriate to use a firearm does not mean other people feel the same way.
It still means more guns in the society and, correspondingly, more death. The externalities of arming yourself with a gun are just too high to justify it.
I like to think of my role as "dad" is to prepare my kids as opposed to protecting them. Life is going to happen, we can't protect them from everything. What we can do is help our kids create themselves in such a way that "emotional chaos" is not part of their experience.
I hear you (I also have kids) but I always feel like the level of hype here is 75% about that pretty, white "before" photo. Yes it is tragic but what about the 1000s of disadvantaged kids that yearly fall into crime and drugs, ruining their lives, being incarcerated or killed, because of institutionalized indifference to the poor non-white members of our society and the corresponding negative feedback loops that trap them generation after generation. No personalized stories about them. No years of Jean Benet follow up, nothing except vilification and blame from the right.
Stop seeing everything through a racial lens. It is the first time an incredibly complex surgery has been performed, the race of the person is irrelevant. If this surgery was in China and performed on a Chinese person it would be just as groundbreaking.
Sorry, I definitely disagree with you and I'm not going to stop. I don't see everything through a racial lens but I do think there is a lot of racial injustice and it should be called out and discussed where it makes sense, like here (IMO).
There are definitely stories that are sadly under-reported, but I do think that this story is an interesting feature that would’ve been done even if the patient were not a young white woman.
While I agree with you that stories about the plight of the underprivileged are certainly underreported, I strongly disagree with you that most of the hype around this story is due to race. Face transplant is a very new, highly risky, and highly experimental medical procedure that only recently became viable. There is an extremely non-trivial amount of scientific research, R&D, and funding that has gone into developing this procedure, and this story is nothing short of groundbreaking, regardless of the race of the patient.
For this particular instance, I think your claim is essentially the inverse of #whataboutism.
This seems to be a popular thought on hacker news for some reason, but seriously, there's countless ways to commit suicide. If your solution is to take away just one of the tools, you aren't going to get very far.
Chances are there were pills in the medicine cabinet that could have been used as well. Or countless other ways that also take only a split second decision (and that's assuming she picked up the gun off the table and didn't have to go find it).
The method of choice, however, does have a significant effect on survivability or reversibility of a suicide attempt (pills in the medicine cabinet are a prime example, many people have been saved after taking a lethal dose of medicine) and the ease of availability also has a meaningful effect on the likelihood of suicide attempts; if people are forced to think about it some more, some of them reconsider (e.g. this very case which was a non-repeating impulse, not something premeditated). A solid example for this is the pesticide-based farmer suicides in SE Asia, where countries that limited availability of human-deadly pesticides significantly reduced the number of farmer suicides.
While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives.
>While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives.
I have found two studies with that claim. One is going state by state (like there may be no other factors?) [1]. The second is comparing urban Maryland vs rural (if you've ever been to rural Maryland, you'd know comparing it to Baltimore is ridiculous) [2].
If you're arguing for proper storage of guns, I completely agree with you. If you're arguing that we should reduce gun ownership to save lives, you're ignoring how many lives are saved by private ownership of guns. Unfortunately, no one keeps track of this statistic, but the CDC estimates between 500,000 and 3,000,000 lives are saved in any given year [0]. This study only provides an estimate, but still, compare that to 13,000 firearm related murders [1] and 22,000 suicides [2, Table 6 on page 33]. I think we need more data but from what I've seen so far it seems to me private gun ownership is a net benefit.
You wildly misquote your source, which makes it hard to take your comment as good faith.
The source actually says:
> Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.
> On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey.
It is a huge leap to say that approximately every defensive use of a firearm prevented a death. It does not come anywhere close to passing the sniff test, as we don't see unarmed people dying of crime in the massive numbers implied by your misquote.
> A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gun-wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.
I agree that it's not a definitive link, which is part of why I said we need more data, but the it's not non-existent either. I wish police departments would track and report this statistic like they do murders and suicides.
I am amazed, that 0.2-1% of population would be murdered every year.
Have similar statistics been acquired in other western countries, but with much more strict gun ownership laws, i.e. people can't protect themselves from violence?
It sound to me that it's a vicious circle, isn't it? Guns are easy to get -> bad people get guns -> good people need to get guns to protect themselves -> everybody is "fealing threatened for their lives".
Show your boys this article. Own up to your mistakes, and teach your boys not to repeat them.
Watch how they handle disappointment in smaller things, helping them to cope. Maybe this article will open their eyes to how decisions made in a moment of passion can affect their lives and the lives of many others.
You will not be able to protect them from everything. Start with that understanding and prepare.
Keep them mentally healthy in general, and keep an eye out for latent problems. People deal with cheating boyfriends all the time, but when that's added to other mental health issues things can go very wrong very quickly. In this case, the sudden life changes seem to have left Katie off balance and vulnerable, and when the article refers to "perfectionism" I suspect that's a reference to some underlying mental health problem.
Note that there's a fine line between pathologizing normal personality variations, and missing real issues.
A good first step would be to create a good life for them that they could always go back to in the event if such a crisis. If you are happy or at least content being by yourself, even if you get cheated on, you can get back to normal. If you are empty without a partner and then get cheated on, you lose a lot more.
